The kids in this village wear filthy, ragged clothes. They sleep beside cows and sheep in huts made of sticks and mud. They have no school. Yet they all can chant the English alphabet, and some can make words.

The key to their success: 20 tablet computers dropped off in their Ethiopian village in February by a U.S. group called One Laptop Per Child.

The goal is to find out whether kids using today's new technology can teach themselves to read in places where no schools or teachers exist. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers analyzing the project data say they're already startled.

"What I think has already happened is that the kids have already learned more than they would have in one year of kindergarten," said Matt Keller, who runs the Ethiopia program.

Wenchi, a three-hour drive from Addis Ababa, the capital, sits on the rim of an extinct volcano. At 3,380 meters (11,000) feet above sea level, the night air is chilly, and some of the youngsters gathered in a hut with a hay floor the next morning were coughing and wiping runny noses. But they all eagerly tapped and swiped away on their tablets.

The apps encouraged kids to click on colors - green, red, yellow. "Awesome," one app said aloud. Kelbesa rearranged the letters HSROE into one of the many English animal names he knows. Then he spelled words on his own, tracing the English letters into his tablet in a thick red line.